Ebola has, let's call it the family. And there are five different strains.

It's a very dangerous virus, but it's not a very contagious virus.

This is not Covid that you can get by sitting on the bus with someone who has

it. That's why I'm not concerned that this

would become a pandemic. Peter Piot, who helped identify Ebola 50

years ago and has studied viruses ever since.

Do you think that when you got Covid yourself and got it badly, did it change

something in your own perception? Yes, actually, I was scared to die.

It's a lesson in humility and we are human beings

at the end of the day. From Bloomberg Weekend, this is The

Mishal Husain Show. Imagine this scene, if you will, from

1976. A group of scientists go to Central

Africa to investigate a mysterious new virus spreading in the country that was

then known as Zaire. One of them, Peter Piot, has already

investigated a blood sample back at his lab in Belgium, and he's seen something

strange and unknown. Then at the heart of the outbreak

they work out in days how it's being transmitted from person to person, and

soon it has a name, Ebola, from the nearby Ebola River.

Today, the country they visited is called the Democratic Republic of Congo,

and it's where there is a new outbreak of Ebola.

Everyone hopes that it's not as bad as the one in 2014, which killed more than

11,000 people in six countries, including the United States.

But Ebola is a frightening word, not least because through Covid, we all now

know what a pandemic is like. So for this episode, I wanted really to

understand this virus, demystify it If you like, work out what you really

need to know how you get Ebola, how long this outbreak might last.

What vaccines there are. But talking to Peter Piot is also a

journey into science and discovery in the widest sense, because after Ebola,

he went on to become a leading figure on HIV.

And now, as he reveals, he worries, too about what he calls an epidemic of

misinformation. So I hope you get as much out of this

conversation as I did. It begins with Peter joining me from his

home in Belgium. It's very good to talk to you, Peter,

and I'm especially grateful for your time, because I know you're just back

from a long trip and with many demands on your time, given the situation in

DRC. So thank you,

most importantly. I arrived home, took a shower and wilted through the garden,

checking out the roses that are flowering.

This. Yeah.

So it's my mental health program. So I might, if I may, at various, uh, at

various times, I might go back and forth between 1976 and the present day.

Just because you have all of this knowledge and it helps to set us, uh,

we're in a time of misunderstanding and alarm.

And I think someone like you, who can guide us through all of that and

separate out the facts, it's really valuable.

Hopefully, I can remember everything.

I'm not worried about that. May I begin by asking you to use your 50

year knowledge of this virus that we now know is Ebola, and take us back to the

moment that you encountered it for the first time, when you saw an image of it

in your lab in Antwerp. What went through your mind?

Well, first of all, I was still in training and, um, in virology.

I was 27 years old, just two years after graduating from medical school, where my

professors had told me no future in infectious diseases.

So a boy like you should not go into infectious diseases.

But, uh, I was passionate about it. And, um, the real defining moment was

when we saw a virus under the electron microscope.

In these days, um, virology and isolating viruses was a bit like

cooking, which I like a lot. Um, and, uh, you put it on cells you

inject it in, uh, mice and some, and then you wait, and then you see something.

Today, it's all genetic, uh, you know, uh, identification and so on, and goes

very fast. Um, but the defining moment was really

to see it under the electron microscope. I said I was part of a team.

It's it's not just me. And, um, what we saw was like, with

more, like, spaghetti or worms of so. Viruses are usually spheres round or

square. And here we had like, yeah, call it

spaghetti. Um, and, um, we needed to think, what is

this? Or, uh, um, and we needed to look into

an atlas. This was before, you know, we could, um,

um, go on the internet and see it all. Um, and there was only one other virus

that had the same morphology, the same shape, and that is Marburg virus, which

had caused a deadly epidemic in the city of Marburg among people who, uh, uh, you

know, producing polio vaccine. And then, uh, we got a bit worried

because that's high mortality and, um, uh, we couldn't take it further.

Uh, we got the news from the W.H.O. that, uh, we should forwarded to the

only, um, laboratory in the world, a civil laboratory that was allowed to

work with very deadly viruses. And that was at the Centers for Disease

Control in Atlanta, Georgia. In the US, the three other so-called P4

laboratories were all military laboratories preparing for biological

warfare in the Soviet Union, in the UK and in the US.

It also tells you a bit of the story of the time, you know, um, but that was

very exciting. And I was, you know, 27 and I said, oh

my goodness, you know, a new virus. But my immediate thought was actually,

what does it do to people, you know, how is it transmitted?

So that's the moment that's the start of this 50 year journey.

But I want to ask one more thing before we come to the present outbreak.

And that is why had your professor said to you that there was no future in

infectious diseases, what was the thinking at that time in the 70s?

Yeah, this was when I graduated in 1974, and it was the prevailing, um, you know,

wisdom. Uh, don't we have antibiotics?

Don't we have vaccines? Don't we have hygiene, clean water and

all that? So it's all under control.

And today we know, of course, that that's not the case.

Two years later, new virus. There was a lot of optimism about that

infectious diseases were on, you know, uh, were gone.

But not only was there Ebola, which was actually, frankly, a small outbreak, but

then came HIV, which has killed more people than even Covid.

You know, in the meantime. Which I think is your second life changing moment.

But I want to take you right to the present day, because there's so much

about this outbreak that we are learning, and there's a lot of distrust,

there's a lot of misunderstanding, so help us to understand it.

First of all, this particular strain, Where do you think it emerged from?

Well, what we know is that most of these, if not all these so-called

emerging infections. They're what we call the zoonosis.

On the other words, they come from other animals and they live happily with

animals. In this case, we assume it's, um, you

know, it's a bat, some kind of bad. Um, and it's started actually, in an

extraordinary way, in 1976 because, um, there was there were two outbreaks of

Ebola independently, one in what was then called Zaire, near the equator, now the

Democratic Republic of Congo, and another one in South Sudan independent

from each other. And, uh, today we know that that's the

Sudan strain and the Zaire strain, and both came from

an animal that infected a human being. And then, you know, it was transmitted.

And the same is actually true for HIV. It came from chimpanzees.

And when we have this deadly influenza epidemics, the flu comes from animals.

So that's why I think we will always see it.

Unless we want to eradicate all bats in the world.

What we can prevent, though, is that they give rise to a big outbreak and a

big epidemic. And that's what's happening now.

And this particular strain is the Bundibugyo strain.

And as it happens, there is a large colony of fruit bats right outside the

town that's considered the epicenter. The key thing about this strain is that

it's different from the one in 2014 that caused thousands of deaths, and for

which there are vaccines and there are treatments approved.

Yeah. So Ebola has like it's nearly, let's

call it the family. And there are five different strains.

And the most common one is so-called Zaire, after the country where it first

happened and Sudan. And this Bundibugyo has only caused

two fairly small outbreaks. It's actually a town in Uganda on the

border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

And, um, so it is. Yeah, a bit of a curiosum.

And we we didn't expect that this would give rise to, uh, what we see now.

Um, what's very, very important is that the vaccines that we have against, um,

Ebola is they're only active against Zaire because that's the most prevailing

one. There's some therapies that were

developed, but there was really not a strong reason to develop a vaccine

specifically for this Bundibugyo that then suddenly appeared.

And that's also one of the reasons that it took quite a long time to identify

and to diagnose that this was Ebola, because the diagnostic tests also don't

work against this, um, you know, this new strain, which it

was from 2007. And so it's not so new. Two months, I think,

before it was actually identified as a strain of Ebola.

How contagious is it? Because this is one of the key things

that really alarms people, especially when they look at the evidence that

there is on fatalities and the number of fatalities per cases.

It's a very dangerous virus, but it's not a very contagious virus.

This is not Corona. This is not Covid that you can get by

sitting on the bus with someone who has it.

Um, you really need close contacts. Um, and you need to be exposed to body

fluids. That is why its household contacts.

Often the women who care for someone or a child or an adult with, uh, you know,

with Ebola. It's health care workers.

Let's not forget, in, uh, 2014, when there was the biggest outbreak that we

know in West Africa, uh, it killed 1500 health care workers, doctors, nurses,

laboratory workers, and some because they are also in close contact.

And then. And that's more cultural, uh, in the,

uh, in Central Africa. Funerals are also a very dangerous

moment because people say goodbye, adieu to their loved ones by touching them, by

hugging them, uh, before they're kind of buried.

And that's also gives rise to explosion.

So it's you need close contact. That's why I'm not concerned that this

would become a pandemic, you know, because that's reserved for, you know,

for respiratory transmission or for sexual transmission, as we see with HIV.

Interesting. It's so useful for you to separate out

dangerous, but not contagious or not so contagious, because to many people,

those two things are just inextricably linked.

So just so I understand that a bit more, if you got off a plane and you

discovered that the person you'd been sitting next to on that plane had Ebola?

How frightened would you be? I would be worried, of course.

Um, but, um, unless you touch the person, the risk is very close to zero.

But you don't want to take a risk because the what we call case fatality

rate, the chance that you die when you have it is pretty high.

I mean, in 1976, it was 90%. Nine out of ten, um, in the previous

outbreaks with, uh, Bundibugyo, was about 30%.

I mean, we say it's low, but frankly, one out of three died.

Um, so I think you, as you said, you can't get it on the Tube or in the bus,

uh, in general. So what do you think of travel

restrictions, which are starting to come in, notably by the United States?

Well, not only in the United States. Let's put it this way.

It depends how you're playing it. I mean, I think that what makes sense

is to test people for fever, you know, and if you're in a neighboring country,

like if you're in Uganda, then people who come from the area with plenty of

cases, yeah, you would screen everybody for

fever. Because another thing with Ebola is that

it's really people are contagious when they are symptomatic.

With some exceptions later on. So I would say you have to be careful.

Uh, I would indeed, uh, do a screening for fever and all that from everybody

who's coming. But a complete restriction I think is

really overkill. And actually the World Health

Organization, um, recommends against it. But I think you do worry about the

spread within big cities because human beings living close together,

there's just much more potential for, um, for contamination.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, let's not forget the area where this is happening, um, is very densely

populated, even by African standards. And then, you know, uh, people are very

poor. So they live with many in, uh, in the

same room. But the worst case scenario for me is

that it's in an area with extremely high, uh, insecurity with armed struggle

with a lot of violence. Um, which means that people will, yeah,

get close to each other. You know, you can't move, uh, as you

want. And that means also that, uh,

controlling it through contact tracing and all that is difficult because what

you do in terms of Ebola, one, you you try to, uh, identify, to isolate as soon

as possible someone who's infected. So from the moment that they're having

fever, headache and so on, it starts like a bit of like a flu, you know,

nothing specific. And although it's a hemorrhagic fever at

the end, it can you can start bleeding from your nose and so.

But so identify someone who, um, you know, has it.

And immediately isolate that person. And then also isolate all the contacts

of that person in the household, or if they are, you know, um, uh, traveled or

going to a funeral or whatever. Isolate people.

You know, that's not very fun. And as we know from Covid also, that's

not something people, uh, you know, appreciate, but it is really as

primitive as that. And then you try to offer the best

possible treatment, supportive treatment to someone with Ebola.

And we know that if you can provide good therapy, mortality will go down. In 2024

in Rwanda they had a an outbreak of Marburg virus a cousin let's say from

Ebola, high mortality. They brought it down to about 20%.

And we say only I shouldn't say only, but it's a major decrease because in

Rwanda they could provide intensive care and so on.

But that is not available in where we have, you know, it's such a poor area

with very poor health facilities. Can I tell you the moment, Peter, in the

last few days that I think really brought home to me the, um, the

inequality and the indignity that is an aspect of this.

It's when I read a piece in the New York Times and Ebola is in the headlines.

And yet this reporter, Declan Walsh, who went to the epicenter of this outbreak,

describes going to a hospital, seeing a body, um, covered by a thin sheet,

highly contagious. Yet hardly anyone in the ward was

protected. He writes, in the next ward lay, the

hospital's laboratory technician, also sick.

Seven other hospital workers already died from suspected Ebola.

The most rudimentary equipment was in dangerously short supply tests,

protective suits, goggles, masks, even drinking water.

This shocked me because I guess I imagined that help had been sent or

sufficient help to an area affected by Ebola to this extent.

And yet you read that and realize it's not the case.

Yeah, I read the same article, and also I've seen it, and I literally think every day

about the people who live there. Their health conditions were already the

base is really, was already pretty awful.

Um, you know, just when you think of women giving birth, the the level of,

um, maternal mortality is enormous, uh, because there are no decent, uh, health

facilities. So Ebola is not their only problem. There's

malaria that is killing, uh, people, HIV,

TB, um, you know, and so and in addition, then we have Ebola.

And what does Ebola do? It's not only killing the people who are

infected, but it actually paralyzes the whole healthcare system because just

imagine you're a healthcare worker, you know, and you have Ebola patients in

your hospital. That means that anybody you touch can

mean for you the death sentence. Um, and so that means that all regular

health care is actually pretty much stopped.

And that in an area where people are already suffering not only from poor

health care and health conditions, but also because of the violence of all

kinds, including enormous sexual violence against women. Today,

how far are we do you think, from a vaccine for this strain of Ebola?

Yeah. The first thing is to see whether the,

uh, the available vaccine, uh, actually offers at least some protection.

Oh, the one for the other strain, you mean? For the other strain.

Yes. It's a vaccine made against the

so-called Zaire strain. And we know that works.

So we're lucky. And that's only, uh, you know, since the

West Africa outbreak in 2014 that we know that that works.

That's the first thing to do. You find out what you have already in

hand. But then there is another race going on

to develop new vaccines against the, um, the Bundibugyo strain.

But that's going to take time. I mean, let's say six months, that's by

the end of the year. But and I'm not a pessimist at all, but

I'm afraid that this outbreak will go on for quite a while, um, probably beyond

the end of this year. And the reason is we've seen it before

in that region, uh, also with a lot of violence, with attacks of, uh, care

centers. And now the security situation is much

worse than during the previous outbreak in 2018.

How many countries in the region do you think will be engulfed by this by the

end of the year? Well, I think that definitely Uganda has

already some cases, but they've been doing a good job in isolation and so on.

I'm the most concerned about? Of course they are.

See the Congo, Uganda and South Sudan, which also has a lot of insecurity, very

poor health conditions of very poor people.

Rwanda. I think they're, um, maybe at risk.

And Burundi, I think these are the countries that are the immediate risk

for it. And one thing that is, uh, I think we

should not, uh, underestimate is that there are now really outstanding world

class teams in Africa who can deal with it.

Uh, and that's something that did not exist before.

So the capacity is there, but the means are not there.

We need to really support them. And the fact that you think it's worth

trying the other the the vaccines for the other strain to to try and give

people some protection. What are stocks of that

like? How much of a challenge would it be to mass vaccinate the key region in the

DRC for starters? Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance

has quite a big stock of I don't know the numbers, but it's tens of thousands.

Um, and, uh, the way to deal with this is not to vaccinate everybody, but what

we call ring vaccination. So what does it mean?

It's I have Ebola, so everybody around me will be vaccinated because these are

the people at high risk. And so what they're starting to do is to

vaccinate, uh, all healthcare workers and let's say frontline workers, people

who deal with funerals and burials and so on.

Um, and then, um, the family members and so on.

So that's the that's a matter of logistics.

Now, frankly, um, this is the biggest challenge getting the, um, supplies

there. Also, the protective equipment.

You were one of those people at the heart of an outbreak when you went to

what was then Zaire in 1976 after seeing the virus in the lab in Antwerp.

How much did you think about becoming infected yourself?

Well, first I was 27. I was very excited.

I'd never been to Africa. I'd never, um, you know, investigate an

outbreak. The first challenge we had is that this

is a new virus, completely unknown. And we had no clue how this is

transmitted. Is it mosquitoes?

Which was my biggest worry. Um, because how do you protect yourself?

Um. Is it water?

Is it food? Is it touching someone?

Uh, you know, um, is it blood? Is it sex?

I mean, all the ways that virus is, um, transmitted.

But we found out and within 48 hours that, uh, it must be close contact.

But what do you do then? We, uh.

We're protecting our eyes. I, I used a motorbike goggles because

that they're very close. Um, a mask for mouth and nose and then

gloves, but nothing like what they use now in terms of, um, you know, so-called

protective equipment. Um, it's just wasn't there.

But we were careful. But on the other hand, I drew blood, I

touched patients, and, uh. Um.

Yeah, we couldn't do much for them. How did you discover in 48 hours how it

was transmitted? Because, I mean, this is 50 years ago in

a really challenged part of the world, even more challenged than it is today.

Oh, yeah. There was definitely no AI to tell us,

uh, what it would be. Uh, not even mobile phones.

Um, so what, you ask yourself, uh, three questions when you're in front of an

epidemic, and that is time, place and person.

In this case, we said, when did they die?

And then when you see and it goes up and up and up, it's an epidemic.

And then we saw it was going down. Okay.

Very interesting. Then you ask okay,

when when did it go down? And then it turned out when the hospital

was basically closed. 11 out of 17 hospital workers had died.

Uh, secondly, uh, place, we mapped it out

and we saw that the closer you live to the hospital, the more likely that you

have it. And thirdly, most important, who, person.

And so you map it out by age and sex. It's as simple as that.

And, uh, you, what did we see?

One very few children were, uh, died and were infected.

Okay. That's that.

It makes it very unlikely that this is, um, you know, uh, mosquitoes or insects

or that it's, uh, water or so. Why? Because why would children be saved?

And secondly, we found that there were twice as many women between 18 and 30

who, um, died than men. And since we were a bunch of men, it

took us 24 hours to find out what's the difference between men and women.

Of course, women can get pregnant at that age.

And then. And then you start, you know say, ah okay,

were they pregnant? And indeed were the excess of

women were pregnant women or women who had, um, just delivered and they had

been at the hospital. So everything pointed to the hospital.

It's not really rocket science. And then you use your brain and you talk

to people. I also asked in the villages, how do you

think that it's transmitted? And, you know, it's more like

journalism, a bit of detective story. Um, and it's only afterwards that you

prove it scientifically. But we needed an answer very, very fast.

And we found it with a high level of certainty. Yeah. I hadn't really thought about the links

between my work and yours, but I see them now.

Oh, yes. Definitely, no I, yeah, I hesitated between a

journalism or detective or something like this,

epidemiology. Uh, and I think one of the, one of the

sad moments when you wrote about it in your book, I, you realize that these

very well-meaning nuns who had seen fellow nuns die from this mystery virus.

You were the one who, you and your team who realized that

inadvertently, through the syringes they were using in that hospital, they were

inadvertently spreading the virus and passing it from one woman to another.

These pregnant women who had gone to an antenatal clinic, that their mortality was

very high. But then it took a while to find out the

there were only three syringes and that they were, um, not sterilized only at

the end of the day. And then, you know, this is the most

effective way of transmitting a virus. You inject it directly into another

person, and, teah.

And that was, uh, yeah. The women.

I'm Flemish, so I could speak in Flemish dialect into them.

And then, uh, it was tragic. Yeah.

We live in an age of vaccine hesitancy and distrust,

sometimes in conventional medicine. Those local people back then who started

to fear the hospital in that particular context,

they were right. They were absolutely right.

They and that's what they told me when I went into the villages and talked to

people and, um, they said they said there's something wrong at that

hospital. That's when we stopped going there.

But you mentioned something that is now extremely, um, important and is added to

violence, uh, in the region. And that is the lack of trust amplified

by social media, uh, conspiracy theories.

Um, in the last epidemic in the region, they already burned several, um, care,

uh, facilities. Already two have been burned also now.

And um, and so on the one hand, I understand it.

I mean, you know, just imagine you have Ebola, you were put in isolation and you

die in isolation, and then all your family sees is a plastic bag.

Um, and particularly in a culture where ancestors are so important, we're saying

farewell to the ancestors, uh, is really extremely important as part of life.

And then that's amplified that that the mistrust by social media, which did not

exist, uh, you know, certainly not 50 years ago.

And that's why, uh, today is far more complicated than before.

We have better tools. Hopefully we will have a vaccine.

We have maybe the treatment. But, um, we also have the epidemic of

misinformation. And that means that when we deal with

the epidemic, we also have to invest in, um, in social media, in the, uh, in

influencers. Before we would talk to the traditional leaders, religious leaders

and people who would listen to them. Uh, that's still the case.

But, uh, not with young people. There are people, companies,

universities working on a vaccine right now.

But I wonder if you have a message to the pharmaceutical industry more widely,

given that today it's clear how much money there is to be made from weight

loss drugs. And there was a study out the other day

that said that obesity drugs have displaced oncology drugs as the largest

contributor to the industry's pipeline value.

That's happened for the first time in more than a decade.

What's what's your message to the industry?

Not not to forget these needs. Well, my message is not only to the

industry, but also to, um, governments and public authorities.

We really need to invest in vaccines, but also, uh, drugs against viruses,

antiviral drugs, um, that we will need when there's the next epidemic.

Because what we now see is this cycle of, um, okay, there's a new virus or a

new epidemic panic. And then we scramble and there's money.

And we will have, I'm quite optimistic,

some vaccines and then we forget, you know, think of Covid, we've forgotten.

And I psychologically I understand you don't want to remember all the times,

all the, the bad things that happened, but, uh, as a public authority, we can't

do that. So we need to continue to invest in

preparedness. Um, and that needs industry.

Um, and, you know, there is what we could call there's no market incentives,

uh, making a vaccine against, uh, Bundibugyo virus.

I mean, that requires public, uh, money. Fortunately for vaccines, we have CEPI,

Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

Um, and that's working. And, uh, like in the European Union now

we have HERA, uh, there are now mechanisms which we did not have before.

But keeping that on the political agenda is

quite a challenge. It's really bad that we wait from when

there's another crisis to wake up again and then, you know, and then we all join

forces, as we did for Covid. Um, but, uh, we need to continue to

invest in this. Absolutely.

I have been thinking about the link to Covid and the experience of Covid, and

how people perceive an outbreak of Ebola like this, because clearly, science has

moved on and the progress made during Covid is playing a role right now.

AI is playing a role in the discovery of therapeutics.

Um, but also people are triggered by Covid.

If they think lockdowns were an overreaction or there was

misinformation, then they, you know, revert to those perceptions.

And that's the lens through which they see something like this.

Yeah. It's true, um, that Covid was, uh,

collectively a quite traumatic experience. Uh, I had it myself.

I was even in the intensive care and so on.

So, um, for once, the virus got me also. Um, but, um, fortunately, I'm well.

Collectively, I think on the one hand, you can say it's a triumph of science,

you know, that we had a vaccine so fast and that saved millions and millions of

lives. On the other hand, there's a group of

people that believed that all this was a conspiracy, that it didn't happen.

Um, and, uh, and this is, I would say, a relatively new phenomenon because it can

be accelerated by social media. AI will make it even more effective.

And for me, the big lesson is that we need to listen,

we need to people. We need to communicate.

It's not, as many scientists think, a matter of give more information.

It's often about something else because I don't trust the state.

And that's, um, where we we need also the science of misinformation and

develop not only vaccines against viruses, but maybe vaccines against this

misinformation, if I may use that term. A plus,

qe should not be naive also. Some of these, um, misinformation, um,

you know, campaigns and so on, they can be, you know, organized by foreign

powers and all that. So it is a world that we are in that,

um, where we need to take these things very seriously because they are there to

undermine our societal resilience and cohesion.

And without that, you can't deal with epidemics.

You had long Covid, I think it lasted quite a few months.

There are doctors today who don't really believe that such a thing exists.

Well, like they can call me, but no, no, long Covid really exists.

I mean, I could not cross the street who is living down in London and uh, and we

were living in one of these houses. The bedroom was on the third floor, so I

slept downstairs. I could not make it.

No, no no no, you're it is. It's very well documented.

Now, um, I'm lucky that, uh, I'm. I can run ten kilometres.

No problem. But some people for years, they they're

suffering. And, um, fortunately, there's quite some

research going on now, but we still haven't found exactly how to treat it.

It may be a mixture of other things, but I'm optimistic that thanks to the

investments in dealing with long Covid, we will also hopefully find treatments

and a way to, uh, you know, to manage the people who have this kind of chronic

fatigue syndrome due to other viruses. Do you think that when you got Covid

yourself and got it badly, did it change something in your own perception of or

relationship with viruses after so many years of having been in contact with

pathogens? Yes.

Actually, um, uh, one, I was at some point scared to die.

That's one thing, but it made me realize that, um, you know, we are all

vulnerable. Um, it can happen to anybody.

And, um, it made me also, uh, more or to say interest not only in the virus but

also in the people. And, uh, and certainly, um, I mean, I'm

privileged because we were living in London and the health care is there and

so on. But, uh, going back to where we have

Ebola, there is no safety net. It's a lesson in humility.

And, uh, yeah, we are human beings. At the end of the day, and having done

detective work on more than one virus, what is left for you to solve?

Do you still have a burning scientific desire or, uh, another problem that you

you just are longing to get to grips with fully.

I'm 77. Um, so I, you know, supporting young

people to take it on new ideas. Uh, they come up with the digital stuff

and AI and so on. That can make it all more, um,

yeah, um, efficient and faster to solve

problems. Um, I'm now particularly interested in

the societal aspects, but I'm not looking for another virus.

I mean, when you look at it, serendipity has been a major element in my life, you

know? Ebola, why

did we isolate Ebola in Antwerp, in Belgium?

Because in these days, in Zaire, it was not possible to isolate the virus.

Today they can do sequencing. They do it.

And, you know, in no time. And that gives me also a lot of

satisfaction that there is progress, although sometimes you wonder in the

world, but on the field of pandemic control and so on.

We made fantastic progress. Professor Peter Piot, thank you very

much. Thank you

Mishal. Good to talk.